


desolate

by taibhsemisteire



Series: McReyes Week 2017 [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Injury, M/M, THIS IS JUST PURE SAP TBH, not graphic violence but slight violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 06:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12788784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taibhsemisteire/pseuds/taibhsemisteire
Summary: (McReyes Week 2017 - Day 2)Jesse looked around where he stood. Deadlock gorge? Why was he here? Why did it look so—ruined? The café was before him, the garage behind him, and he stood too close to the edge of the endless gorge for comfort. Everything was rusted, broken. Then again, he hadn't been here in a very long time, so who knows what state it had been left in after the raid.





	desolate

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, I decided literally the day McReyes Week started that I wanted to try to contribute, so I'm sorry for any errors and that this is a mess, please accept my crappy offering. I'll come back and edit at a later date.

Jesse had a strange dream. 

In the dream, something felt wrong. He felt pain, but he didn't know where it was coming from. He searched his body, patting his abdomen and his thighs, but he couldn't locate the source of the searing hot pain that was striking through all of his nerves. He squinted and raised his hand to shade his eyes from the hot, uncovered sun. Everything was dry, hot, and sore.

He looked around where he stood. Deadlock gorge? Why was he here? Why did it look so—ruined? The café was before him, the garage behind him, and he stood too close to the edge of the endless gorge for comfort. Everything was rusted, broken. Then again, he hadn't been here in a very long time, so who knows what state it had been left in after the raid. 

An eerie whistle of wind coming from low in the gorge was the only background noise, so his attention was immediately drawn when he heard footsteps. He turned. Someone was approaching from behind the back of the garage.

"Gabe," he called, exhaling in relief. "You're here."

Gabriel walked toward him slowly, shotguns drawn, one resting over one of his shoulders. He didn't speak. 

"What's going on? Are you okay? I'm—I hurt all over, but I dunno why...."

"Shouldn't be back here." Gabriel said. He sounded far away. 

"What?" Jesse frowned, worried. He took a few steps toward his commander, raising his arms as if to hold him. 

"You shouldn't be back here. You belong to me now, remember?"

Jesse paused, searching Gabriel's face. He didn't seem mad, didn't seem upset. He seemed calm. He was gently tapping his other shotgun against his thigh. "Y-yeah... Yeah, I didn't mean do, I dunno why I'm here.... Did you come to take me back?"

"You wanna come back?"

Jesse blinked sand out of his eyes. "Yeah. Yeah, 'course I do."

Gabriel nodded his head in the direction of something behind Jesse. "Show me, then."

Jesse opened his mouth to question, but closed it again as he turned. On the road behind him, there was another figure. Tall, lithe, pale skin and dark hair sharpened in color by the harsh sun. Who was that? Wait... That was Ezra. Jesse used to work for him.... Didn't he? Yeah, back at Deadlock. He took Ezra's orders. 

Ezra had his rifle pointed at Gabriel. 

Jesse raised his hands, taking a step to his right to cover his commander out of reflex. "Whoa, wait, what's going on?"

Ezra tilted his chin up. "Hey Jess, what're you doing? That's the enemy you're covering."

"He's—wait," Jesse turned and looked over his shoulder at Gabriel. Gabriel was still watching him.  _Show me,_  he'd said. 

"He killed our friends, did this to our home," Ezra gestured with his free hand at the burning storage containers around him. "Move outta the way."

"That wasn't his fault, he was followin' orders..."

A twitch of pain crossed Ezra's expression. "You taking the same orders now too?"

Jesse didn't know what to say. What was going on? Ezra was—Ezra had died, he was sure. He didn't know the details, but after the raid only two others had survived beside himself. Neither of them was Ezra. 

"Answer the man, Jesse." 

Jesse could feel Gabriel's eyes on the back of his head, but he kept his eyes on Ezra. He could feel the weight of his own rifle at his hip. Ezra had been his friend, he thought. Hadn't he? He couldn't really remember. He remembered Gabriel, though—remembered Gabriel kicking him awake at four in the morning telling him to get back to his own quarters before the wake-up call. Remembered Gabriel shooting him small smiles after briefing at a mission. Remembered the bruises Gabriel left on his hips that he loved seeing the next day. 

Jesse drew his rifle, slowly, eyes on Ezra. 

"You gonna shoot me with that thing?" Ezra asked. "Or him?"

Jesse kept his left hand raised, palm up, rifle held by his side in the other hand. "Why don't you just back on down, Ezra," he suggested, voice low. "Go on back into the café, and we'll be on our way."

" _We?_  That's how it's gonna be?" Ezra's fingers adjusted their grip on his rifle. "You know how we work, Jess, I'll shoot him through you if you make me."

Jesse would make him, he realized. He realized what Gabriel wanted him to do, too.

He whipped his rifle up, fast, and two shots went off.

Ezra fell onto the dusty road, and Jesse fell to his knees, gripping his left arm and screaming. 

He couldn't see anything anymore—the dream faded away around him, the desolated Deadlock gorge disappearing as quickly as it had after the raid. All he could see was white. He could feel in this throat that he was still screaming, and his left arm burned and dripped. 

He could hear someone talking. 

"...and evac is on the way, you just gotta hold on a while longer, shhh, you listening?"

Jesse felt something tight wrap around his arm just above his elbow and he screamed again, throat raw.

"Jesse! Hey, you need to calm down, you're gonna lose more blood like—"

"Gabe?" He bit out, blinking water out of his eyes and trying to see. He still felt blind, but he knew that voice. Gabriel was here—of course he was, they were on mission. They had to scope out the empty warehouse during skeleton guard, only the intel had been wrong, there were more guards than there were supposed to be. It had all gone wrong. His arm—

"Yeah, yeah, it's me, you listening?"

Gabriel's face swam in front of his vision as he leaned in to stare down at Jesse. God, he didn't look okay. Jesse'd never seen him look like that. He could feel one of Gabriel's hands on the side of his face. 

"I shot him," Jesse gasped out, not really sure what he was talking about anymore. "I done like you said, I shot—"

"You did great, quiet now," Gabriel looked away at something above Jesse, eyes scanning something. Jesse was laid out flat on his back and he had no idea where he was. "Evac's on the way, you're gonna be fine, you just gotta calm down."

"My—my arm," Jesse tried to lean up to look at it, and immediately a grunt of pain ripped its way out of him. Everything hurt. 

Gabriel pushed him back down. "Don’t look, look at me, yeah?"

Jesse did, and he knew he was crying, and he knew he should feel embarrassed, but instead he reached out with his right hand and tightly gripped the fabric of Gabriel's jacket. "I'm dying," he wondered out loud. 

"You're not fucking dying, shut up." 

But Gabriel couldn't feel what Jesse could feel. Jesse knew he was going cold, he could feel every drop of his own sweat against his sensitive skin, he could feel his breathing coming in short, hiccoughing gasps, his irregular heartbeat. He could feel the throbbing in his arm every time his heart pumped more blood out. 

He couldn't stop thinking about the dream. 

"He was gonna shoot you," he gasped, grabbing Gabriel's arm tighter. 

"Nobody shot me, shh," Gabriel looked worried—he probably thought Jesse was losing it, but he  _needed_  to understand. 

"I wanna go back with you—" Jesse searched Gabriel's blurry face, finding his eyes. "I don't wanna go back there."

Jesse could hear a noise growing louder and louder somewhere—he could feel wind growing stronger and stronger, blowing his hair into his face. Every touch against his skin hurt. 

"You're coming back with me, they're coming to get us now, they're gonna fix you up and it's gonna be okay. Hey," Gabriel patted Jesse's face. 

Jesse blinked slowly. He was so tired, and so scared. He didn't know what was happening anymore, he just wanted to go back to Gabriel's quarters with him and go to sleep. "I'm so tired," he said, breath catching. He knew what it meant, he knew he was probably going to die. 

"Then you can fucking sleep in the carrier on the way back," Gabriel ground out angrily. "But not now. You're on mission, stay the fuck awake."

"Okay, boss," Jesse managed, more for Gabriel's sake, because he knew he was going. He would've carried out any order Gabriel gave if he could, but he just couldn't stop his eyes from getting heavier. Gabriel was saying something else, but Jesse couldn't really hear him anymore. His head moved; Gabriel was shaking him, probably. At least he didn't die in Deadlock gorge. 

Jesse survived. 

He figured as much when his eyes opened again, seconds later, it felt like, the thought of dying in the dust in Deadlock gorge still in his mind. He wasn't in the dust, though, and he wasn't on his back in a warehouse. He was propped up in a neat, white room, lights dimmed. 

He tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry and swollen. A noise to his right went through him like drums at a parade. 

He lifted and turned his head slightly, blinking his eyes open more. He was groggy, everything was so heavy. Gabriel was still here, though. 

He looked exhausted. His hair was a mess, his hat absent, and he needed a shave. His eyes were bloodshot and tired. "Hey," he whispered, reaching a hand out and taking Jesse's in his. 

It took Jesse one or two times to reply, eventually croaking out a dry noise. 

"Hang on," Gabriel released Jesse's hand, searching around on the bed for something. "I'll call for the doc, tell them you're awake and get you some water," he explained, holding one of those dumb buttons that they gave people who couldn't get up and take care of themselves. 

Jesse lay his head back down and closed his eyes. He felt really, really sick. Like he had the worst flu known to man. Probably he had an infection or something, that could happen when someone got wounded.

Wait, wounded. He opened his eyes again, remembering. He couldn't feel anything, though, maybe they had him numbed up. He lifted his head and looked down at his left arm. 

There was no arm there. Well—no arm past the elbow. Jesse felt weirdly giddy. No wonder he couldn't feel it, it wasn't there. That should still hurt, though, right? 

He dropped his head back onto the pillow, feeling suddenly nauseous as Angela walked in. 

"Is everything alri—oh, McCree, you're awake," she announced, stepping toward the edge of the bed and examining his face. "How do you feel?"

"He needs a drink," Gabriel answered. Jesse looked at him and Gabriel looked back. He'd watched Jesse checking his arm. "He can't talk well."

Angela moved away from the bed toward the wall, pressing her hand against a panel there and removing it as it slid open. She produced a sealed bottle of water, and the pop as she released the attached straw broke Jesse's giddiness. His arm was gone. 

"Here, take a few sips, but not too many," she offered gently, holding the straw to his mouth. Jesse did as he was told—it hurt to swallow, but god, the water was good. 

When he could speak, he said the first thing that came to mind, clearing his throat painfully first. "Where's m'arm?"

Angela and Gabriel looked at each other, then at Jesse. 

"I couldn't repair the damage," she explained. "Both radius and ulna were shattered where they form the elbow joint, and the muscles too severely shredded by shrapnel. You have a fracture in the humerus, too, but that was more repairable. I'm—I'm afraid that amputation was more suitable than leaving the lower arm with the debilitated function, and the infection, of course."

Jesse let it sink in, picking apart what she'd said. His arm had gotten fucked up. She couldn't fix it. She saved what she could. Basically. 

He breathed in. "Okay."

He looked down at it again, at the bandage covering his—what was left of his arm. 

"Recovery will take a while. We can do what we can with the caduceus system, but physiotherapy will still be required all the same, and the arm must be fully healed before considering the viability of a prosthetic, but—"

"Prosthetic?" Jesse blinked, looking back at them. 

Angela bit her lip, and Gabriel said nothing. "Yes... That is, unless you would rather not. It's standard to provide to injured agents, though, and I've already considered some designs."

"You mean, like—" Jesse swallowed again, searching for his words. "I'm not—I'm not done?"

Angela opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, looking at Gabriel where he remained seated by Jesse's bed. 

"Done?" Gabriel asked when he realized they were waiting for an answer from him.

"Yeah, I mean... I've got one arm, boss," Jesse pointed out, trying to give a small smile. It didn't work, though, it didn't stop the water gathering in his eyes, and jesus, he did not want to be crying right now, where did that come from? 

Gabriel took a deep breath. "Yeah?"

Jesse turned away and looked up at the roof, willing the tears not to actually spill. "Can't be much good like that, can I?"

Silence filled the room for a few seconds.

"Ziegler, give me a few minutes here." 

Jesse heard Angela's heels click as she stepped away. "Of course. I'll be back to explain more in fifteen minutes." 

He waited until he heard the door slide shut before he looked back over at Gabriel. Gabriel didn't speak yet, though. He stood, and Jesse was worried that he was leaving for a second before he sat on the edge of the bed instead, looking down at him. He reached out a hand and pressed it against the side of Jesse's face like he had back in the warehouse, and Jesse felt a tear finally make its way out of the corner of his eye. 

Gabriel bent down and kissed Jesse gently. Jesse shut his eyes. 

"You're still good," he felt Gabriel mumble against his lips, and he took a deep breath. The floodgates had opened now. "You're perfect."

Jesse lifted his one good arm and wrapped it around Gabriel. He pulled him closer, hid his face in his neck, and cried. 

**Author's Note:**

> I say dumb stuff on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/taibhsemisteire) if you are into that.


End file.
